I'm not a super big fan of Apple's policies, but honestly, how does this shit get modded insightful? Don't like thunderbolt, use USB, those cables cost $2. Don't like the apps in the Appstore? Then install from the developer's website. Like hacking? Then install homebrew and have at it. I mean seriously, vim comes standard on OS X, and you can easily install clang or gcc to build whatever you want. XCode is free!!!! You need to pay absolutely nothing, beyond the cost of hardware, to build and distribute software for OS X.

Also, look what happened with Gaddafi. He voluntarily suspended his pursuit of nuclear weapons in exchange for aid, then was promptly removed. Would he have been removed so quickly if Libya was a viable nuclear power? What kind of lesson does this send Iran and NK?

Absolutely right. It is important to recognize that both Matlab and R are much more than just languages. I would also throw Mathematica into the mix too, while it is a bit slower than Matlab, its numerical capabilities have continued to grow and it incorporates a fine statistics package alongside a quality plotting and graphics package (not to mention its symbolic roots and recent introduction of dynamic gui manipulation).

For julia to be successful it needs robust integration with quality addon packages, starting with graphics and plotting. It also needs good documentation. One thing that annoys me to no end with Python (and numpy, scipy, pylab, matplotlib) is that you have to look at 3 or 4 different websites to look up API and examples. In my mind Mathematica does this right: a single documentation library which incorporates API reference, tutorials, and common functions grouped together. At the bottom of every page it lists related functions and tutorials so it is easy to discover new API calls in the language.

Almost all Autodesk Software is free for students, staff, and faculty. This includes the big guns like AutoCad, Inventor, Maya, etc. This cannot be said for nearly any other company.
Also, they do have reasonably priced "hobby" versions of some of their software. Autodesk 123D is a surprisingly useful tool to model in 3D and is free.

Do the companies own this data? If I buy a computer, create data on it, does the device manufacturer own that data? How could it be legal for a company to transmit data from a device no longer under their ownership?

ItsIllak writes: The BBC are reporting that Paypal are the latest company to abandon Wikileaks. The list now includes their DNS providers (EveryDNS) and their hosts (Amazon). Paypal's move is unlikely to result in many more people boycotting the company as most knowledgeable on-line users will have been refusing to use them for years for a wide variety of abusive practices!

akeeneye writes: Amazon dumps Wikileaks that is. The Huffington Post reports:"Amazon.com Inc. forced WikiLeaks to stop using the U.S. company's computers to distribute embarrassing State Department communications and other documents"I'm embarrassed to be an Amazon customer at this point.

dakameleon writes: Wikileaks has been booted from its Amazon hosting, and has now shifted to being hosted in Europe. Senator Lieberman, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said in a statement."This morning Amazon informed my staff that it has ceased to host the WikiLeaks website," which raises the question whether this was requested by the government. Senator Lieberman said Amazon's decision to cut off WikiLeaks "is the right decision and should set the standard for other companies WikiLeaks is using to distribute its illegally seized material". Wither free speech and reporting?

CWmike writes: Amazon has pulled the plug on WikiLeaks, the site that earlier this week began releasing a mammoth collection of confidential U.S. State Department diplomatic cables. 'WikiLeaks servers at Amazon ousted,' WikiLeaks said about 3 p.m. ET on its Twitter account. 'Free speech the land of the free... fine our $ are now spent to employ people in Europe.' According to reverse IP traces run by Computerworld, WikiLeaks is now hosted by a Swedish firm, Bahnhof Internet AB, which is headquartered in Uppsala, a city approximately 44 miles north of Stockholm. As of 3:30 p.m. ET, the primary WikiLeaks site was available to Computerworld staffers in the U.S., but some attempts at reaching the URL failed.

The issue we have now is that we cannot trust the government to properly classify reports and cables. Many things are left unlawfully classified in order to cover up embarrassing events. In general I agree that there are instances when sensitive information needs to remain secret, but it is clear in my mind that our government has not applied the necessary level of discretion in their classifications to warrant unquestioned trust. Wikileaks provides that questioning, which one would hope would guide the government's actions in the future.

Long story short: People act to a higher ethical standard when being watched.